


Déjà Vu

by lateralus112358



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: Amidst a fluid backdrop, Root and Shaw discuss things.





	Déjà Vu

**Author's Note:**

> not a happy story

Intellectually, of course, you’re aware that there is no meaningful difference. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, in a veritable plethora of configurations and contortions. Really, you’re seeing even less now than you have on other occasions. It shouldn’t make any difference.

But goddamn, if Root in a bikini isn’t the hottest fucking thing you’ve ever seen. 

She is ‘sunbathing,’ which is her present excuse for presenting her bikini-clad form to you from every possible angle. Not that you’re complaining. Not that you’re not, if you’re honest, just blatantly ogling her. How the hell are her legs so long???

“See something you like?” Root inquires, innocently, crossing one very long, smooth leg over the other.

“Maybe.” You lay back in your long beach chair, letting the cool breeze sweep over you, brushing a few strands of hair away from your face. “I could use a drink.”

“Well, all you had to do was say so.” Root replies with a smirk. She gets up off her towel, and pads across the sand to the cooler you dragged out here. She swings her hips suggestively as she walks, and makes quite a show out of bending down to retrieve the relevant items, looking back at you to make sure you’re still watching her. Which you are. Even before your ‘relationship’ with Root had reached the point where it occasionally warranted un-ironic usage of the word ‘relationship,’ you could still admit she was ridiculously hot.

She walks back over to you, and holds a cocktail glass out towards you. You’d told her that you were more of a beer kind of girl, but she had told you, “A date on the beach requires a slightly more sophisticated palate, Sameen,” and so it is that your alcohol is handed to you diluted with fruity bullshit. But it’s better than nothing. You reach for it, and Root pulls it back. “Just give it to me.” You groan.

“Well,” Root says in her let’s-think-about-this-Sameen voice, “I’ve only got one drink.” She shrugs. “I guess we’ll have to share.”

“Let me guess,” You say, sitting up straighter. “In order to ‘share,’ you’re going to have to squeeze into this chair with me, and try to molest me while distracting me with alcohol.”

“You have such a way with words, sweetie.”

“Fine.” You say, scooting over to one side of the chair to make room for Root, who happily squeezes in, and immediately starts encroaching on your space. She hands you the glass, wraps her arms around your waist, kicks one of her legs over on top of yours, and rests her head on your shoulder. 

You have to admit, it’s not bad. The drink, that is. And maybe the company, too. 

The company’s hands make their way across your stomach, and slip under your bikini top. The company kisses and nibbles at your neck, and you begin to think that this ‘mission’ The Machine sent you on was nothing more than Root’s idea of a romantic getaway. Honestly, the entire sequence of events leading up to your arrival here is just a blur in your mind. The company’s hands are making it very difficult for you to think about anything right now; the cocktail glass slips out of your hand and you forget to care. You nudge her legs apart, and slide your thigh between them. 

“Now who’s molesting who?” She whispers, letting out quiet gasps against your neck.

“You started it.”

“Sameen, are we going to spend our entire tropical vacation arguing or are you going -“ she breaks off with a moan as you move a hand down southward to accompany your leg.

“I like you better when you’re not talking,” you tell her. At this point she’s completely given up on teasing you; her hands are clutching the edges of the chair, her breaths heaving. You love seeing her like this, needy and desperate. She’s always so self-assured and in control, and it excites you how you can render her a moaning, thrashing mess with just your hands. “And anyway,” you continue, calmly. “New York’s hardly ‘tropical.’”

“New York?” Root says between gasps, burying her face in your neck.

Wait, New York? You’re in Florida. You and Root went back to the place you stayed at after your Alaska trip. Why the hell did you think you were in New York?

Your hand stops moving, and Root gasps and grabs desperately at you, urging you to keep going, but you’re too distracted by the whirlwind inside your head.

You can’t be in Florida, because you have no memory of a plane trip. Actually, you have no recollection of coming out here at all. There’s a vague impression in your mind of the Machine arranging some sort of mission, but the specifics slip away like you’re trying to remember a dream. Why is everything in your brain so murky? How the hell did you end up here, wherever here is is?

A memory breaks through the fog.

The stock exchange.

The elevator.

Samaritan.

“You could have taken a little longer to figure it out,” Root pouts. “I guess that’s why I like you, though. You’re very clever.”

You look down at her, and notice she’s not in a bikini anymore. Neither are you. You’re both decked out in all black, just like you were on that day. The beach has disappeared, replaced by the cold metal floors and walls of the stock exchange’s basement. You pull yourself up off the ground, leaving Root laying there, looking disappointed. This is the exact spot you were shot. You turn towards where Martine had stood when she pulled the trigger.

She’s not there now. Nor are any of the other Samaritan agents. Or Reese, or Finch, or Fusco. Just you, and Root.

She’s pulled herself to her feet, and watches you pace around the room, her arms crossed over her chest, a slightly amused expression on her face. “Not exactly the place I’d choose for a romantic vacation.”

You barely listen to her. The walls emit metallic reverberations when you bang on them, which is an unusual characteristic for a material that was up until very recently, for all appearances, salty beach air. You paw briefly at your jacket, which also bears no apparent signs of having been swimwear moments ago. You turn back to Root, who’s leaning against the gate that blocks the elevator, her eyebrows raised at your antics. “What is this?” You demand.

“Telling’s no fun,” she says with a frown that’s also a smirk. “Try guessing.”

You growl. Whatever this is, Root is complicit in it, and as usual takes a perverse pleasure in not explaining anything to you. Your frustration boils over, and you stalk over to her, seize the collar of her jacket and drag her face down to yours. “I got shot,” you grind out between gritted teeth. “So what? Am I dead now?”

Root’s breath catches and her face flushes, just inches away from yours. Her voice, strained as she replies, still has a hint of amusement. “You think this is heaven?” She appears to think about it. “Not a bad guess. Less likely now that you’re dressed, though.”

“More like hell,” you mutter. “Figures you’d be here to torment me.”

A look you can’t read crosses her face.

With an exhalation of frustration, you let her go. You should have known better; the threat of pain only makes her more excited. And the threat was empty anyway; you both know you could never hurt her.

Wait.

Another flash of images break through the haze of your mind.

Reese’s body, broken and bleeding before you.

Root’s face, concerned and scared.

Cold metal pressed to the side of your head, your finger on the trigger.

You run your hand against the metal of the merry-go-round, and sit down on its edge, the stock exchange dissolved as if it was never there, the playground taking its place without ceremony. Images with edges like knives flood your mind, as if some invisible floodgate had just broken open.

A room with white walls. Lights bright on your face. Wires running from computers connecting to your head, firing your synapses in a constant string of exquisite anguish.

Root crouches down beside you, resting her hand lightly on your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I didn’t want you to have to remember this.” She sits down next to you on the merry-go-round, close, but still giving you space.

Another simulation. A bitter sort of amusement arises in you when you imagine that you ever thought you’d get away. Samaritan’s mixing it up, though; usually the simulations make an effort to hide their irreality. Then again, maybe they’re fucking with your memories of past simulations as well. Even your mind isn’t safe for you anymore.

This is the place you went to feel safe. With Root, or whatever Root-approximation Samaritan sees fit to hurl at you. The place you blew your own brains out over and over rather than face the prospect of hurting her. 

Not that any of it matters now. You should probably just kill yourself and cheat Samaritan and Greer out of the drama they’re clearly angling for. Your hand reaches into your jacket to see if this simulation included your get-out-of-jail card, but Root grabs your arm before you find out one way or another.

“Is that chip in your head telling you to kill me?” She whispers, her breath tickling against your ears.

“No.” You reply, realizing that it’s true as you say it.

“Then let’s save any heroic self-sacrifices until later, all right?” Root gently pulls your hand out your jacket, and you don’t resist.

You’ve completely lost track of how many simulations you’ve been through. You used to keep count, as a distraction, a way to keep a grip on your own sanity, but somewhere along the way you must have lost it. Scattered remnants of memories drift to the surface of your mind like flotsam, but they quickly sink beneath the murk before you’re able to string them together in any meaningful way.

Some themes recur. Root weaves in and out, her presence almost constant throughout the simulations. Sometimes you break out of prisons and find her, sometimes she breaks you out, tearing through Samaritan and its people like she were a god, instead of just having one jacked into her brain. John and Harold are often there too, and Bear. 

Usually you kill them all soon after.

Except Root.

You kill yourself instead.

Sometimes, when you pull the trigger, you’re not sure if you’re still in a simulation or not. You never spare much thought to the possibility, though. It wouldn’t change anything. You’re not sure what it is about Root, how she got so deep under your skin, made you into someone who would take a bullet for her instead of firing one at her, someone who is enraged at the idea of anyone hurting her, but you found out, that day by the elevator, and in every simulation since, one very important fact: You are willing to die for her.

Perhaps to allay any sense of nobility this discovery might grant you, the simulations also remind you over and over and over that a little coaxing is all that’s required to make you willing to murder everyone else you care about. 

You look over at her, sitting beside you, her face a picture of gentle concern. It’s somewhat mollifying to note that your thing, whatever it is, has changed her as well; the woman who ziptied you to a chair and threatened you with an iron is fundamentally different from the one who routinely risked her life to protect yours. Or maybe it was The Machine that was the catalyst, you don’t really know.

She might still tie you up and threaten you with an iron, though. That’s not the part that changed.

“What are you thinking, sweetie?”

Her cloying, over-affectionate tendencies haven’t changed either, although somewhere along the way you apparently stopped being bothered by them.

“I’m thinking Samaritan’s losing its edge. This simulation is pretty lame so far.”

“Well,” Root says, standing and giving the merry-go-round a shove, giving you slowly-scrolling, panoramic view of the shadow-drenched playground. “Maybe we can use this lapse in Samaritan’s imagination as time to talk.”

“Sure,” you scoff, sticking your foot out and stopping the ride’s rotation as you reach Root again. “So you can try to get me to lead you to The Machine? No thanks.” Samaritan likes to twist the knife by utilizing your only source of comfort as its primary tool for seeking out The Machine’s location. You suppose you can’t fault it for its tactical prowess; even when you know what’s happening, you can’t make yourself leave her.

“I won’t,” Root bends down in front of you, and lifts her right hand, pinkie extended, lips quirked up. “Promise.”

You know she’s not real. Not the gorgeous, deranged, lethal woman who methodically tore down all your defenses, made you break all your rules. You know she’s just code, ones and zeroes, pumped into your mind courtesy of Samaritan. 

Just code. She’d like that, you think.

You know she’s not real, but you still don’t pull away. You don’t ever remember being lonely before, but every time you realize you’re in a simulation, you feel Root’s absence like a chunk of you that someone scooped out. And if that hollow, dull pain represents Root’s absence, then the presence of these not-quite-Roots that mock you with their indistinguishability from _your_ Root is a white-hot dagger lodged firmly somewhere inside your stomach.

You always were fascinated by pain. Especially your own.

“Fine,” you sigh. The only reward for escaping a simulation is yet another simulation, so you may as well hang around this one a little longer. It’s more pleasant than most, all things considered. “What do you want to talk about?”

Root sits down on the merry-go-round, and looks at you expectantly. You roll your eyes, stand up, and give the old contraption a push, sending her spinning.

“What is it about this place?” She asks, her eyes closed as the ride whirls her around. She grins as you give it another push, increasing her speed. “You always come here.”

“I didn’t like that I was different when I was kid.” You remember how determined you were to overcome the stupid merry-go-round. “Kept trying to fit in. Be like all the other kids.” Abruptly you grab the metal bar and arrest the ride’s rotation. “Can you take us somewhere else? This place sucks.”

“Sorry, Shaw,” Root says. “I can’t take us anywhere. You’re in the driver’s seat here.”

“Thought all this came courtesy of Samaritan.”

“Everything you see here comes from your own mind, Sameen.” Root smiles.

You frown. “You said earlier that this was all Samaritan’s imagination.”

“No,” Root contradicts you lightly. “ _You_ said that. I just didn’t correct you.”

“So this is all from my mind?” You scoff. “You think the stock exchange is my idea of a good time? You think the beach thing was something I came up with?”

She shrugs. “Guess you just can’t wait to get me out of my clothes. Or your subconscious, at least.”

You don’t bother pointing out her hypocrisy; she spends around ninety percent of her time with you just trying to get into your pants, and you both know it.

She stands, and pads over to the swingset, shoes crunching on the gravel beneath. She gives one of the swings a light push, and watches it swing back and forth. 

“I never really fit in as a kid, either,” she says, facing away from you. “Maybe I was just looking for you, even back then.”

“I wouldn’t have been a very good friend,” you move to stand beside her. “Besides, we probably would’ve ended up burning someone’s house down or something.”

Root laughs lightly. “Four-alarm fire, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She’s turning something over in her hands, small and rectangular, but you can’t make it out in the dim light. She notices your gaze, and hands it to you wordlessly.

A book. _Flowers for Algernon_. 

“What is this?” Something nags at the back of your mind.

“Something a friend gave me a long time ago,” Root’s voice is soft. She gives you a small smile.

Wait.

“You never mentioned this to me.” You say, some sort of revelation struggling through the molasses of your mind, trying to make itself known.

“You never asked me for my life story,” Root says, taking the book back from you. “Besides, a girl’s got to have a bit of mystery.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Your frustration builds. “You _never told me about this_. All this,” you gesture around wildly. “Is coming from my mind, right? So how the hell does something I’ve never seen before show up here?”

You can’t figure out what Root’s expression is supposed to convey. “I think you’re underestimating your imagination, Sameen.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head, becoming more and more sure you’re right. “No. I _might_ make up a beach, or a prison. Something general. Or something I’ve seen, like the stock exchange. Why would I come up with something so specific? I’ve never even _heard_ of that book before. Why would I put it in here?”

This simulation has seemed off from the start. The way the scenes move seamlessly from one to another, no attempt to disguise the fact that nothing here is real; the way your mind isn’t under siege, telling you to try and kill Root; the way no one even seems to exist here outside the two of you. 

Recollection hits you like a heavy blow to the stomach, bringing you to your knees, knocking the breath out of you. Memories suffuse you in an unstoppable rush. Root holding you, you holding Root, an overwhelming relief tinged with fear coursing through you.

Reese’s face, expressionless but still instantly understandable, phone held to his ear. 

A grave with no name, just a number.

Root’s body, pale and empty, a lifeless hunk of meat that pretends to be the woman who used to inhabit it.

You remember your escape. And Samaritan’s downfall. John’s death. 

Root’s death.

And afterwards. Days slipping by making no attempt to differentiate themselves from one another. New numbers. Lives saved to distract you from what yours has become.

Empty. 

You pull yourself up off the floor, and are greeted by the familiar surroundings of your apartment. Root’s sitting on the edge of your bed, her gaze fixed on the fluffy bunny slippers not quite shoved underneath the bed’s frame. 

You wish you were back in Samaritan’s torture room. You wish you were on the beach with Root. You wish you were a kid trying to ride the merry-go-round without throwing up.

You wish you were anywhere but here.

“You’re dead,” you say, and she nods without looking you. “So what the hell is this? Not Samaritan. Another simulation?”

“It’s not a simulation,” Root says. “Not from a computer, at least.”

“So then what is it?”

She doesn’t answer. “How are you doing?”

“…What?”

“You know. Since I left.”

You walk over until you’re right in front of her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She looks up. “If it’s not a simulation, what the fuck is going on here?”

She sighs. “You’re asleep, that’s all. You’ll wake up soon.”

“Asleep,” you repeat. “So what, this whole thing is a dream?”

“Sort of. The details don’t really matter. What’s important is that we have some time together.”

“The details are kinda important to me. I want to know exactly what is happening here, and how to make it stop.”

“I know you’re trying to avoid talking about your feelings, honey.”

You turn away, walking over to the fridge where you store your larger guns. “I’ve told you, I don’t have feelings.”

“We both know that’s not exactly true.”

“OK, fine,” you say, turning to face her. “You want to know how I feel? Really?”

She doesn’t say anything, so you keep going, recollections of your life after Root solidifying in your mind.

“I feel like shit. I feel like shit all the time, and every time I start to feel better, I see those stupid fucking fluffy slippers on my floor and I feel like shit all over again.” You take a few breaths, try to cool yourself down. Then you continue. “But I can deal with it. Because I keep it buried. And whatever _this_ is,” you gesture around the room. “It just makes that a hundred times harder. Are you just trying to torture me? Haven’t I had enough already?”

Root doesn’t look apologetic. In fact, she looks almost ready to throttle you.

“Do you think,” she says, caustically. “That for once in your life, you could think about someone other than yourself? Maybe,” she continues, voice tight, “You’re not the only one who’s lonely. Maybe I just wanted to see you again.”

Silence.

The bed creaks as you sit down beside her.

“So it’s really you.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re dead.”

“Yes.”

“So what, you just… float around in people’s dreams now? Is that really how death works?”

She sighs. “I don’t understand it any more than you do.”

Another silence.

“I found your stuff,” you gesture at the slippers on the floor, the laptop on the bedside table, the bizarre stuffed animal on the headboard. “After Samaritan. Were you staying here?”

“After I lost you —“ Root breaks off, and then starts again. “I wasn’t around very often. She had me all over the world, running down Samaritan agents. But I needed someplace to stay when I was in town, and here felt like home.”

You place your hand overtop of hers on the bedspread and grip it tightly. 

“So what happens when I wake up?”

Root shrugs. “Everything goes back to normal.”

There’s another long silence.

“I’m sorry I let you go without me.” You say eventually.

She looks at you quizzically.

“If I’d gone with you, he wouldn’t have gotten the shot.”

Root smiles sadly. “There’s nothing you could have done, Sameen. It’s not your fault.”

“You deserved better,” you mutter. “You deserved to be happy.”

“I was,” she whispers, laying her head on your shoulder. “Very happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah it's basically a dream bubble.


End file.
